William Tauzin: “Mr. Chairman, this un-Kind amendment is typical of the reaction we get from the other side when we try to produce a…”

“Mr. Chairman, this un-Kind amendment is typical of the reaction we get from the other side when we try to produce a comprehensive, balanced energy bill for America. We are asked to include efficiency titles and conservation titles and renewable fuel titles and alternative fuel titles and we do. Then we have one title to help maintain pro-production in this country, the vital fuels, the hydrocarbon fuels, the oil, the gas. It is critical to keep electric plants working to keep this economy going, to keep people warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and we get an amendment like this to strike that part of the bill, to totally unbalance it, so it does not have the pro-production features that a balanced energy policy ought to have. The President, in asking us to pass this bill, did a study of the Nation's needs in natural gas alone. He predicted we needed 1,600 new major electric plants in this country to supply this country with energy, and most of those plants were going to be natural gas plants because it is the environmental fuel of choice in America to produce electricity.”